Hi everyone,
I have previously installed a 25' x 25' square made of 6x6s. There are 2 courses and they overlap with 6" offset. They are screwed together top down and at corners. It was originally made (by overcautious dad) for my 3 yr olds swingset/fort/slide and filled with 6" of wood chips. Do you think this would require any extra bracing if I was going to put down a liner and make a rink? Will a liner or reasonable strength perform OK over chips instead of grass?

I think you could make that work strength-wise, but my concern would be the slope. Unless that's laser-flat, I'm not certain 6" is tall enough for boards. You typically want at least 4" of ice, and that only leaves you enough board for 2" of slope. Use the cheapo method in this post and get back to us with some slope numbers.

http://www.backyard-hockey.com/2011/10/ ... yard-rink/

I should check again to make sure nothing settled. I was pretty anal about building it level originally, though in hindsight I'm not sure why I bothered. I can remove some of the wood chips if I need more board.